MY DIGS ON DISTANT ENCELADUS

by Martin Elster

A pair of scientists from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) were members of a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team that observed a towering plume of water vapor stretching over 6,000 miles — a distance comparable to that between the U.S. and Japan — erupting from the surface of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. This notable discovery, achieved during NASA JWST’s Cycle 1, has led to Dr. Christopher Glein of SwRI being granted a Cycle 2 allocation to examine both the plume and crucial chemical compounds on the surface, in an effort to better comprehend the possible habitability of this oceanic celestial body. —SciTechDaily, July 20, 2023

With ample geothermal activity,

sparkling geysers, and waterways that flow

below a glaze of purest H2O,

Enceladus is the perfect place for me.

Throughout those rows of rage on Mercury,

during those catlike spats of spite on Venus,

even as a universe grew between us,

this speck of dust was waiting just for me.

Though much too far from the sun for vitamin D,

with monumental subterranean seas

and a balmy minus three hundred thirty degrees,

this moon’s the ideal hideaway for me.

One hundred gushing geysers feed the “E,”

the greatest of those radiant rings of Saturn

which fashion such a pleasurable pattern,

this is the quintessential moon for me.

I skate the grooves of Samarkand or ski

down Ali Baba and Aladdin, bounce

and bounce and bounce as though I weigh an ounce

here on this satellite so right for me.

Beneath the ice, an awesome panoply

of beings surely bathe. It must be so!

One way or another I will go

beneath the ice. Great exploits wait for me!

One that has risen, curled around my knee,

my house-trained and obedient caecilian

like magic turns from cyan to vermillion,

a blind and limbless thing quite fond of me.

This moon is much too minuscule to see,

although it gleams so loudly, I must wear 

my sunglasses to tolerate the glare

peculiar to this rock just right for me,

a home away from home where I am free

to shiver like a chickadee from the dearth

of warmth on a dismal dot so far from Earth.

It’s how I like it. It’s the spot for me!

The winner of the 2022 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, Martin Elster comes from Hartford, CT, where he studied percussion and composition at the Hartt School of Music and performed with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Martin, whose poetry has been strongly influenced by his musical sensibilities, has written two books, the latest of which is Celestial Euphony (Plum White Press, 2019).

HARES ON THE MOUNTAIN

by Gail White

Families connected to a Nashville school that experienced a fatal shooting earlier this year have created nonprofits to not only promote school safety and mental health resources, but also to form an action fund to push legislative policy changes. The Independent (UK), July 21, 2023

If all the young women were hares on the mountain,

Then all the young men would turn hounds and go hunting.

—“Hares on the Mountain”

Why is your gun so hot, my son,

have you hunted the deer today?

No, mother, the deer were safe from me.

I have hunted another prey.

Is it your father’s gun you found,

that he kept on a shelf so high?

No, mother, this gun is all my own,

for guns are easy to buy.

No one bothered to ask my age,

or how much I could understand,

and it’s easy enough to find the prey

on a tracker in my hand.

I may go hunting along the beach,

or down by the hidden pool,

but the deer are all as safe from me

as the children are safe in school.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Paper Cuts, Asperity Street, and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

STRAIGHT TALK FOR AMTRAK JOE

by Patricia Phillips-Batoma 

One of the photos Lunden Roberts posted on Instagram of her daughter during a trip to Washington.

After Maureen Dowd, “It’s Seven Grandkids, Mr. President,” The New York Times, July 8, 2023

Mr. President, for the love of God, learn to count to seven—
one boy, six girls—and include the one named Navy.
Be quick. You hold a ticket for the good old train to heaven.
 
You love to fist bump all of America’s little children,
except one who hopes you’ll call and waits so patiently.
Please, Joe, for God’s sake, learn to count to seven.
 
What’s more she’s cool. A true made-for-shades Biden.
Gift her your good name and wrap it in some empathy.
Snap to it, you hold a ticket for that good old train to heaven.
 
It’s embarrassing to have to give a President a lesson,
and hard truths voice themselves with such severity.
So, no more malarky, just count all the way to seven.
 
Once those pearlies close, you might sense some tension,
the sound of heart space, forever and forever empty.
Too late, the good old train pulls into the eternity of heaven.
 
Spare her the taunts, this awful earthly aggression.
Navy! Navy! Not a welcome baby!  So can you maybe,
Joseph Robinette Biden, count all the way to seven?
Even presidents hold a ticket for the good old train to heaven.

Patricia Phillips-Batoma is a writer and teacher who lives in Illinois. She has published poems in Skylight 47, An Capall Dorcha, The New Verse News, Off Course, and Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis.

DRY JULY

by David Chorlton

Today the inside knows what the outside’s like,
cats asleep and windows closed
with nobody walking on the street
and birds in the yard waiting for a shadow
to perch on.

                     It’s a hundred-
and-Hell degrees this afternoon, the devil’s
breath for a breeze
and climate change denial melts
when the temperature dances
on the asphalt in the road.

                                                The midnight low
is too high for living outdoors. Another
record falls. The homeless camp
was swept away and a public nuisance
turned into a death threat.

                                                     A dove
has made a dust bath in a bare patch
on the lawn, a man with no address
lies down with his belongings
at a bus stop where there’s shade.

A lizard on the back wall
flashes his lightning scales as he climbs
a few more degrees
                                     of dry heat
and doesn’t stop until he’s safely reached
the air conditioned sky.

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems often reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. He still produces occasional watercolors and is attentive to the local wildlife.

WHERE WE ARE ALL FALLEN

by Chun Yu

 

“Give it back to me!”

I dragged the mugger and his bike

To the ground in a split second

Demanding firmly the return of

The device, an extension of my life

Snatched out of my hand from behind.

I was the last in a small crowd dashing

For an early evening downtown bus

Already shutting its door, pulling

Away from two blurry figures

Clashing on a late winter street

Beaten by cold rains and littered with

Random trash and nameless shadows.

 

“What are you doing?!”

The mugger yelled at me 

In disbelief of a muggee

Fighting for what was taken

His young eyes big and wide

Incredulous in black and white

Strong hand gripping my iPhone

Between our faces so close and

Have and have not newly switched

Veins popping and blood seething

In mutual desperation.

 

“I will give it back to you!”

He even yielded for a second

Under my unwavering stare

As my mind raced for the next move

But yanked away from my grip

With a force, sudden and resolute

And fled on his bike with

His prey and prize of the day.

I leaped up and chased after him

Like a sudden superwoman

In hope to right the wrong

(No runner or athlete

I had no idea where she came from.)

As far as I could on the darkening street

Soulless, helpless, and unnegotiable

Where he was lost, a fleeing shadow

So young and fit, full of

Heartbreaking and broken promises

Where I was lost, dragging my own shadow

Slight, alone, hands and heart emptied

A knee skinned raw.

 

“Don’t do that!”

My family and friends

Shocked and worried sick

Cried out in alarm, in synchrony

On two sides of the ocean

Hearing about my fierce fight

Fraught with danger

But keeping it from my parents

Too ill and frail to be informed

Having just pulled through Covid 

In their old ages, amidst dangers

Micro and viral, macro and epic.

 

“Don’t do that!”

I told myself that too, after:

Being petite at five foot three

Size extra small in America

Where weapons are legal and lethal

Deadly and deafening…

How I never learned Kung Fu

From Grandpa, who, having survived

Wars and revolutions, only wanted

His first granddaughter to focus

On school to become a scholar

Or better, a straight minded scientist

Safe, sensible, and disentangled from

The madness and messiness of the world…

 

But there was no time

To reason, not even with myself

For the do and do not

Being attacked and in defense

Being human, ancient and new.

 

After filing the police report

I couldn’t help but point out that

The corner, where I was mugged

In our beautiful City by the Bay

Beloved by the world

And us, with aching pride

Was dimly lit, and perhaps

Could be brightened, for safety

And for the sake of us all.

 

The officer, chill and seasoned

By the cold winds and fog

Blowing and billowing

On our golden high hills and

Through our dark low alleys

Summed it up, loud and clear

Almost with a laugh:

“This is the United States.

Nowhere is safe!”

 

I cleaned the blood off

My injured knee

Brought to the dim ground

Where we are all fallen.

 

I covered it with soft gauze

Which I wish I could apply

To the open wounds

We all carry

 

And prayed for the dawn

When we wake up

To find our way

To stand up

As one.

Author’s note: My poem is based on my experience of being mugged recently for my iPhone, much like these recent victims in the news reported by ABC News: San Francisco women targeted by teens in violent cellphone robbery spree. The incident took place at a bus station in downtown San Francisco back in March. As a petite Asian woman of 5'3", I may have appeared to be an easy target based on assumptions. However, to the mugger's surprise, I managed to tackle him to the ground with his bike and engaged in a brief exchange, during which he almost returned my phone. Unfortunately, he ultimately managed to escape with it. Writing this poem has been a profound process which allows me to reflect on the stories behind the incident from all sides, find healing and peace of mind as a victim while seeking possible solutions in the city I have chosen as my home, and which I deeply love, as a first-generation immigrant, a scientist turned bilingual poet, and a community connector.

Chun Yu, Ph.D., is an award-winning bilingual (English and Chinese) poet, graphic novelist, artist, scientist, and translator. She is the author of the memoir in verse Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Simon & Schuster). She is a Library Laureate 2023 of San Francisco Public Library and an awardee of YBCA 100 (2020). Her work is taught in world culture and history classes.

A SONNET FOR A CAPITALIST SOCIETY

by Claude Clayton Smith

But woke capitalism is a paper tiger. Companies embrace identity and cultural inclusion as a way to expand their market share to new communities while obscuring their raw political power and the ruthless underpinning realities of shareholder capitalism. Elites on the right, meanwhile, know very well that it is a paper tiger but are more than happy to play along with a shuck and jive that allows them to wield “woke” as a cudgel against the left—and for some voters, it does the vital job of stoking resentment. (Graphic by Brandon Celi) —Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times, July 12, 2023

They call us Homo sapiens but we

are no such thing. Homo consumo is what

we are—dumb dogs that chase our tails with glee

and gladly sniff the rank capitalist butt

that shits in the face that licks it, absolves itself

of sin, and crassly fouls America’s soul.

Got that? Harsh words, I know, knocked from the shelf

without Roget to soften. Life was whole

in early years on planet Earth—when all

survival meant was food and shelter, not

an endless senseless cycle of corporate gall.

Now comes a new human sort—Homo rot.

The economic life that fails to share

will never cure the ills that it lays bare.

Professor Emeritus of English, Ohio Northern University, Claude Clayton Smith is the author of eight books and co-editor/translator of four. His work has been translated into five languages, including Russian and Chinese. His first adventure as a solo editor—Gauntlet in the Gulf: The 1925 Marine Log & Mexican Prison Journal of William F. Lorenz, MD—was published in March of 2023. His degrees include an MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.

COUNTING THE DEAD

by Susan Cossette

Gilgo Beach, Long Island 2011

Call me Melissa.

He called me whore,

tucking my cell phone and cash

in his hip pocket.

He put me to sleep by the shore,

wrapped in burlap 

among the brushy scrub.

They pull my bones 

from the rocky sand,

my skull from a plastic bag—

Alas, poor girl,

we don't know who you are

but will poke the dry bits left of you

back at the lab.

Faceless, nameless shadows,

trading our flesh for cash.

Now, we matter more in death.

I spend my days counting the dead,

gathering my silent sisters one by one.

Some missing hands, or heads,

my job is to piece them together,

to make them beautiful again.

Megan, Maureen,

babies waiting home for you,

did you ask for this?

Amber, no one noticed you were gone,

feeding the hunger in your veins.

You didn't deserve it.

None of us did.

I found you all,

in the snow squall

of that December night.

Black beach, flashing police lights,

silence broken by sirens

and the hollow hum

of the crime lab generators.

What remains?

Crude holes in the tangled brush,

the buzz of rush hour traffic.

I regard the hot pink spray paint lines

faded on the sand,

marking the boundaries of our world.

A silver medal nailed to a tree.

Crime scene.

Author's note: This is a poem I wrote way back in 2011.  I am originally from the Metro New York area, and this story was all over the news more than a decade ago.  The story of these women haunted me. This past week, it appears that there is some resolution to the story.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, The New Verse News, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press), Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press), and After the Equinox.

THE SEA CANNOT SPEAK FOR ITSELF

by Renée M. Schell

More than half of the world’s ocean has changed colors in the past 20 years, a phenomenon that is likely driven by climate change, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The study, which analyzes decades’ worth of satellite data, found that 56% of the global ocean—a territory larger than the total land area on Earth—experienced color change between 2002 and 2022. While the researchers didn’t identify an overall pattern, tropical ocean regions near the Equator seem to have become steadily greener over time. (Photo: Edoardo Fornaciari—Getty Images) —Time, July 13, 2023

Fifty-six percent has become green.

Can we still say azure ocean

or blue sea?

 

Now Aqua, the research satellite,

reflects back the lush color

of phytoplankton,

 

tells us with its seeing eye

that for the past twenty years the vast

waters of Earth have been changing 

color.

 

With chlorophyll out of balance,

how can our oceans,

the teeming gallons,

 

survive this attack?

Revert back?

 

 

Renée M. Schell’s debut collection Overtones was published in 2022 by Tourane Poetry Press. Her poetry appears in The New Verse News, Catamaran Literary Reader, Literary Mama, Naugatuck River Review, and other journals. In 2015 she was lead editor for the anthology (AFTER)life: Poems and Stories of the Dead. She taught for seven years at a Title I elementary school in San José, California. 

OTTER 841

by Katrinka Moore

For the past few summers, numerous surfers in Santa Cruz, Calif., have been victims of a crime at sea: boardjacking. The culprit is a female sea otter, who accosts the wave riders, seizing and even damaging their surfboards in the process… “Due to the increasing public safety risk, a team from C.D.F.W. and the Monterey Bay Aquarium trained in the capture and handling of sea otters has been deployed to attempt to capture and rehome her,” a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement. Local officials call the animal Otter 841. The 5-year-old female is well known, for both her bold behavior and her ability to hang 10. And she has a tragic back story, with officials now forced to take steps that illustrate the ways human desire to get close to wild animals can cost the animals their freedom, or worse, their lives. (Photo by Mark Woodward/Native Santa Cruz) —The New York Times, July 12, 2023

She has a true name, of course, that

we’ll never know.  But we can give her

a nom de guerre—maybe Greta (as in

Thunberg) or Harriet (as in Tubman) or

Lolita (Lebrón)—women warriors

fighting for their people as 841 is doing,

trying to beat back the invasive species

endangering her endangered habitat.

California Fish and Wildlife, there’s

a simple solution and it’s not to REHOME

this sea otter who’s living in her home.  Ban

the surfers.  Contrary to popular belief,

humans don’t really get to go wherever

they please and do whatever they want.

 

Katrinka Moore's latest book is Diminuendo. 

GHAZAL FOR THE WOMEN OF AFGHANISTAN

by Jackie Fox

The bearded old men stop at nothing to stifle the women.

Keeping them hidden will solve the temptation of women.

Oh, they talked through their turbans like nothing would change

for lives that had blossomed like lilies—the women. 

The women knew better. The cascade of workplace and school

slammed tight against the menace of girls and danger of women.

Vanished from work, school and public movement without a male—

this would seem sufficient erasure of women.

But nothing is ever enough for the old zealots, who want only

to keep their coarse sandals planted on the necks of women.

So now—of course and at last—the beauty salons, 

last refuge for most and livelihood for some of the women.

Not enough to endure the hijab or burka and forego makeup in public.

Even the most private pleasures must be denied to women.

And to those of us in the West with our patented knee-jerk shock—

We tried to warn you, whisper the women.

Jackie Fox lives and writes in Nebraska. Her work has appeared in Rattle, The Bellevue Literary Review, Tar River Poetry, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets, and numerous other journals and anthologies

SWINGING ON WINGS OF FLAME

by Mary K O’Melveny

There's a house somewhere I know where the fire's burnin'

All night long… 

And even though the wind may now be howlin'

The stars are bright and they push me on and on

—“Half Moon Rising” (Yonder Mountain String Band)

  

We keep exploring outer space for answers.

Out there, we learn that black holes make sounds

of music as they swallow everything

around them. Celestial destruction

to the tune of string band melodies, as if

the Osborne Brothers or the Red Clay Ramblers

had booked a cosmic venue where eager stars

do-si-do around dark matter’s edges.

 

Sit still and you will hear creation’s story

spelled out with mandolins, fiddles, five-string

banjos. On Earth we are orchestrating our

own demise. Everything has turned extreme.

Our hottest week just past will not be last.

The burning air tastes like barbeque.

Put an ear to ground, hear it singe, smolder,

sear from simmering smog and haze.

 

Far better to harmonize and tap our feet

as Earth’s axis shifts and we wobble, weave

like drunken sparrows. Saharan sands might

land in Kansas while floodwaters choke New

Jersey highways and algal blooms poke out

from Florida’s rivers. Grab a good seat

at our cosmic amphitheater where smoke

rises from the speed of guitar picking.

 

If you listen closely, you can hear some scat,

nonce, argot. Go with the flow. Flat Foot Floogie,

Tutti Fruiti. Explosions of fervor, fury

unleashed by gas ripples in galaxy

clusters. Who can say this fate will not be

ours as well? One hopes we won’t be around

by then. For now, we can dance as glissandos

of sound drift from the heart of the Milky Way.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

VERMONT FLOODWATER

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

 

Shot on an angle by their dad from behind

My great niece and nephew stand in silence on a bridge over the Winooski River

Dressed for Taekwondo in red and white

Boy with hand on concrete rail, girl in form-ready pose

 

They are frozen in the video, like children in a painting

As the wild Winooski race-churns below, disregarding streets

Down from the mountains, wild brook to wild river, a New England water rodeo

Riding Vermont farm, village and town, with too much water from too much rain

 

Ten days ago their grandmother, my sister, texted a photo of Camel’s Hump

Wreathed in Canadian wildfire smoke, yesterday a video of her playful stream in murder mode

Tiny Vermont, in the climate crosshairs

Hill and hamlet no longer safe retreat

 

During Irene I watched the covered bridge of my childhood

Die an animal death on national television, falling wounded in seconds

I grew up drinking sap from the bucket

And long for the sweetness of Old Vermont

 

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of seven nature books, including City of Trees,  A Year in Rock Creek Park, Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Islan,d and The Joy of Forest Bathing. She began writing poetry during the pandemic and has had several poems published by Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice, including “How to Silence a Woman,” and “If I have loved you,” both of which won “Moon Prizes.” Earlier this year The New Verse News published her poem The Water Cooler following multiple mass shootings. Melanie grew up in Vermont wandering the woods and fields, and her heart aches for her family and friends who are dealing with catastrophic flooding in Vermont.

HEAT WAVE

by Richard Schiffman

Heat Wave painting by Ralph White

If sweat were gold, I’ve lost millions. 

If hell were cold, I’d be in heaven.

If heat were meat, I’d feed the world.

If hot were smart, this day’s a bloody genius.

Robin redbreasts with lolling tongues 

are begging for the spare change of rain. 

Today even the fire ants are panting like puppies. 

The dog days of summer, they whimper, they drool.

Pigeons in heat spontaneously combusting,

bridges diving like ducks into rivers, 

green leaves boiling and bubbling from trees, 

trees hawking their shade to the highest bidder.

Still, there is something in me that loves a flame. 

That burns baby burns complacency’s ghetto.

Whose body is grease for its very own pyre.

Whose soul is on fire like a summer in Georgia.

Some seasons are mild, some seasons are fiery

If June kissed the moon, the moon would go loony.

If July were a stud, every mare would come screaming.

When mid-August simmers, the whole world is soup. 

Today only mad dogs and Englishmen are strolling.

And possibly some poets and wandering monks.

Fervid souls, assorted fools. We know who we are.

We know what we’re up to.

Richard Schiffman, based in New York City, is an environmental reporter, poet, and author of two biographies. His poems have appeared on the BBC and on NPR as well as in the Alaska Quarterly, the New Ohio Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, Writer’s Almanac, This American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, and other publications. His first poetry collection What the Dust Doesn't Know was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry.

THE MICKEY MURAL

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Murals of cartoon characters including Mickey Mouse and Baloo from The Jungle Book painted on the walls of an asylum seeker reception centre to welcome children have been removed on the orders of the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick. The murals were painted over because he thought they were too welcoming and sent the wrong message. —The Guardian, July 7, 2023

The Immigration chief on Team UK 

Has ordered: Whitewash walls—kids shouldn't be

Encouraged to feel welcome here if they

Migrated in small boats across the sea.

In Dover, staff demurred at playing ball.

Cartoons of Mickey Mouse and bear Baloo—

Kind gestures in a mural on a wall—

Extended caring hands of friendship to

Young kids, alone. But now those pictures are 

Misguidedly effaced. What art will go

Up in their place? Cruella? Scar? Jafar? ...

Right minds must feel embarrassed, since they know

An action that's appalling and absurd

Lets Britain down—and no child is deterred.

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, The Washington Post, and WestWard Quarterly.